Fletcher Shipping
is a Uk based shipping company set up by the
former management of SBS after the purchase of
that company by Viking Supply. Their press
release at the time suggested that Keith
Fletcher who had been the driving force behind
SBS was to remain as General Manager, but
obviously he moved on to pastures new taking his
management team with him. They all started in
OIL and the colour scheme of SBS reflects that
association.

OIL, then SBS and
now Fletcher Shipping have tried to attract
staff by telling people that the operation of
their ships is wholly managed by the staff on
board. This proposal probably attracts people
who are fed up with shore management apparently
cocking up what seems to be a good job. In my
experience of this sort of an operation the
shore staff seemed to want to hand over to the
ship bits of the job which I would have been
perfectly happy if they had continued to do
ashore, and in return seemed to want to
micro-manage bits of the job which I regarded as
mine as a shipmaster - but I'm sure Fletcher
Shipping do a lot better than this.

At the time of
writing (January 2010) the company operates two
platform ships. And at the time of the 2013
review there had been no further changes to the
fleet.

At
the 2014 review the company has added two
platform ships to the fleet, both middle aged UT
705s and they have two UT 755s on order from
Simek in Norway for delivery at the end of 2014
or early 2015.

In August 2015
Fletcher Shipping went into administration, a
casualty of the plummeting oil price and the
resulting reduction in offshore activity in the
North Sea. But good news for some, except for
the company creditors, a rescue operation
resulted in the assets being taken over by FS
Shipping with support from finance house. The
one ship on order and about to be delivered has
been purchased by Edison Chouest.

This ship entered service as
the Gerd Viking, but was bought by Star Offshore in about 1994. When Star
was purchased by Stirling it became the Stirling Aquarius, and on the
purchase of Stirling by Seacor it was bought by Myklebusthaug
and bareboated back to Seacor who operated it until
October 2004. At that time it reverted to the owners who inventively renamed
it "Aquarius" and awarded the management to Gulf. It is fitted with a Marex
tank cleaning system.